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US Offers $5 Million Reward for African War Crimes Suspects

The United States is offering new, multi-million-dollar rewards for four African war crimes suspects.

The U.S. says it will pay up to $5 million for information leading to the capture of Joseph Kony, Okot Odhiambo, and Dominic Ongwen - all leaders of the LRA rebels in central Africa - and Sylvestre Mudacumura, leader of the Rwandan rebel group FDLR, based in eastern Congo.

All four are being sought by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Speaking at the State Department Wednesday, the ambassador for war crimes issues, Stephen Rapp, said the U.S. is acting so there can be justice for innocent civilians subjected to mass murder, rape, enslavement and other atrocities.

In January, U.S. President Barack Obama signed a law that allows the U.S. to offer rewards for those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide by an international criminal tribunal.

The ICC issued arrest warrants for Kony and the other LRA leaders in 2005. The group has killed and kidnapped thousands of people over the past 25 years across four central African countries.

The FDLR is an ethnic Hutu rebel group whose members include fighters who carried out the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The group is accused of numerous attacks in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Mudacumura last July, after indicting him on charges of murder, mutilation, rape, torture and destruction of property.